Serial caregivers: Aldergrove woman has spent 24 years caring for five different relatives

Lorraine Hubbs with husband Ross at their home in Aldergrove. Lorraine has cared for her husband's father, who had cancer and his mother who had debilitating arthritis, then for her sister Gloria who had Lewy body dementia, then for her mother who had Parkinson's, and now for Ross who has Alzheimer's.Photo by
Arlen Redekop

Since 1987, Lorraine Hubbs has worked constantly as a caregiver for five different people, making their meals, doing their errands and cleaning their homes. But she hasn’t received a dime for it.

That’s because they’ve all been her relatives.

Hubbs may not know it, but the Aldergrove resident is a perfect example of the new wave of “serial caregivers” — mostly boomer-aged women who work and raise children and then in swift succession find themselves first taking care of their parents and then a spouse, with no break in between for themselves.

Hubbs first started her “career” in family caregiving when she was a mother of three in her 40s and her father-in-law got cancer. His wife had debilitating arthritis, so she had to step in and look after their needs, quitting her job in office administration. After they both passed away, her sister Gloria fell ill with Lewy body dementia, and she helped her sister’s husband out with her care, until her sister passed away. Then her own mother, who was showing symptoms of Parkinson’s, needed help. And just a few years after she wrapped up her mother’s estate, her husband, Ross, started showing Alzheimer’s symptoms. He was diagnosed in 2005, and she’s been his sole caregiver ever since.

“It’s such an all-consuming responsibility,” said Hubbs, as she sat across from her husband on their backyard porch, holding his hand as he quietly smoked a cigarette.

“Unless you live with it 24/7 hours a day, 365 days of the year, you really don’t know what it is all about,” she said of being a caregiver for someone with dementia. “It is constant change. You have to be so flexible and have a plan A, B, C and Z, because the first 18 won’t work.”

Ross, a former truck driver, said it has been hard for him, too. When he first started getting lost on the job, he said, “I thought I was having a nervous breakdown.”

Today, the 67-year-old, who is also diabetic, has trouble completing a train of thought and asks the same questions repeatedly. His hand-eye co-ordination has suffered, so he needs help with tasks such as shaving. He’s lost weight due to a lack of interest in food, and activities he used to love, such as rose gardening or playing guitar, are slipping away from him.

“I can get a hold of things, but I can’t seem to hold on to them. I lose interest,” he said.

What has helped Hubbs pull through was an Alzheimer Society of B.C. caregiver support group she belonged to for five years. But she admits that finding time for self-care is hard, even as her own health is suffering: She has high blood pressure and low thyroid.

“One of the first things that the Alzheimer Society tells you to do is take care of yourself. But jeepers creepers, you’re so busy, you don’t have time.”

That’s why Hubbs was thrilled to discover a caregiver appreciation night created by another woman in her community.

Langley resident Stephanie Lafreniere knows first-hand the stresses caregivers go through. She is raising two boys and working four jobs while flying to Arizona every six weeks or so for the past eight years to help her father for a week or more, as he’s been taking care of her mother, who has dementia.

“It’s the sandwich generation. There’s guilt on both ends — the guilt of going away from your family and leaving your job to take care of your parents, and then guilt when you are taking care of family at home because you’re here and not down there helping out,” says Lafreniere.

Wanting to help others in her family’s situation, Lafreniere somehow found the time to put on an event called Caregivers Night Out last summer. Out of her own pocket, she treated more than 30 caregivers to a free meal, a dance show put on by some of her dance students and goody bags and door prizes donated by businesses, no strings attached, just as a gesture of goodwill.

“It was just a reminder that someone sees that what you are doing is really heroic, and the recognition that you really need a break. Caregivers get a lot of information and they get handed reams and reams of paper. But sometimes what they really just need to hear is, ‘You are a hero,’ rather than, ‘We’re going to shove all this information at you.’ Caregivers are not thanked a lot of the time for what they do.”

Her gesture hasn’t gone unnoticed. Hubbs was one of the under-appreciated caregivers who attended the event last year, and said it was a lovely escape.

“Stephanie is a wonderful person that recognizes some of the difficulties and stresses of caregiving and has been trying to give a break to caregivers,” Hubbs said.

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